“May be tomorrow things could change for the better”

Anonymous,

Today, I achieved a milestone, one that would seem insignificant , small, even trite to the “normal” person going down this journey that is our lives. Today I picked up my ninety day chip and you would have thought I was accepting the Noble Peace Prize. Perhaps for me this was no different for I am an addict, a recovering addict now but an addict none the less.

Ninety-one days ago, I hit my rock bottom. I couldn’t live the way I had been for almost thirty five years. I had no more ‘may be tomorrow things could change for the better’ left to hope for, to give me one simple reason to hold on to so that I would face another morning, another day. I had given up, excepting that life had beat and broke me down. I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. I wanted it to be over. I wanted the ultimate of what my spiral into the black abyss of being a drug addict, a junkie for over twenty years was no longer able to dull, numb or erase what I didn’t, couldn’t let myself feel. The only choice I gave myself to stop feeling, to no longer feel this indescribable emptyness, the desperation of isolation because I was convinced that I was a freak, that there was no way that there was another soul that existed which could possibly know what truly having a cursed life felt like. Believing I was “terminally unique” was my crutch. No one understand me, how could they? Let someone walk a mile in my shoes and they would be ingesting any pharmaceutical legal, Illegal or mixture of chemicals that might give you that false utopla that feeling like this was the cure, the only way that was to be your destiny in this life. This was my story at least. I thought the world, the people that came in and out of my world had always and would always return or dispose of me as easily as if they had purchased a sweater that at first they fell in love with, had to have it, couldn’t live without it. It fit the perfectly… that is until they had it a few days, it just didn’t seem to fit them chose this thing? They no longer needed or wanted in the end. Anonymous, I was this sweater. Discontinuing myself was my next step. Here’s where my addiction, my illness was so cunning, it talked to me just as if it had a soul and body. My Xanax and Vallum became the only person I needed, they understood me, could comfort me, they promised to take away this black hole that had now consumed any positive shred of life in me. It was as if my life was simply nothingness, meaningless. I was a body that was taken up others air that they breathed and space that they could build a life on. Unlovable, even by the ones who proclaimed that they were the only ones that loved me, the only ones that I could truly count on, These

people, my blood had been the ones that had abandoned me during the some of the most devastating, traumas and unknown, uncertain leaps that I would face in my near future(with a very sick, premature infant son). When I needed the ones who said that it was only them that loved me, that would be there for me, there were gone, mot even saying goodbye. Once again I was alone, no different than the ten year old girl that was left for many, many hours waiting under a tree to be picked up, they never came for me because I had been easily forgotten. A child already left to feel that I was no different than that sweater, my life was already trying to tell me that this life was nothingness. Add twenty nine years of this same cycle of relationships, schooling, careers, dreams and eager starts only to be followed by abrupt stops, more times than not the stops would be my crashing through a wall. Over and over again, I began to set myself up for failure, that was I could feel my illness that was lying to me. If I continued to create drama, pain and suffering in my life, I had the excuse to take as many sedatives that I could find Doctors to write to me scripts for. Fuck what I was doing to my family, to myself, life didn’t care about me but my pills did. This was achieving two things(unhealthy), I was now the center until the minute I blacked out. Lets not forget, the spending, the fights, the arrests, the accidents, the not remember conversations with people that I don’t remember seeing, the days weeks, months and yes, the two years that I have almost no recollection of. This was my life. What a life huh? Ninety-one years ago, I took seventy2mg Xanax, if that was not trying to end my life then I don’t know what is, My life didn’t end.
Somehow in that log I admitted to my husband and son that I needed help, I couldn’t do this on my own, no matter how hard I tried. Amazingly enough at 3:00 AM. I was still awake and on the Internet, I only remember seeing the web site for Boca House and Awakenings. I called the number and got Ron, remember I was still fucked up. That was the beginning of the amazing turn my path in life has taken. Giving you my story was the only way in which I felt would help anyone reading this to understand the most emotionally brutal journey that I have ever/will ever venture down. I was fucking pissed and scared to death. There was no way in hell that I was going to tell every Intimate detail of the things I had not only endured but had done and inflicted on others. I knew I was unredeemable. I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror(literally). I hated the person I had become. Yes, another reason to stayed fucked up 24/7!!!

I came into PHP program at Treatment Alternatives, thinking what in the hell did I just sign up for? There is no way that I’m sick as these junkles. I just need to have a little self control. I evaluated my new surroundings, sat back and quietly observed Anonymous & Anonymous and Anonymous at first. The first week I thought “Hell, I got their game plan. There was no way that

they were going to get into my head, make me say my deepest fears, my hurt or suffering, screw that and screw them. There is no one damn thing emotionally affecting me. I have a little drug problem, I’ll just do my time and then cruise on out, back to my life. This was the logic and rationale every day I walked through those glass door that open the wrong way. I happily signed my name every morning. I wanted to be teachers pet, like I was going to get gold star because I showed up. The first eleven days, I knew that I was smarter than these guys, after all I was able to transform into whatever type of person I thought they would but into. This really crack me up, the meeting with Adam, I was this shy, soft spoken, demure, proper southern female, I think I even dressed the part. I knew I had him snowed. SUCKERS, there isn’t a damn thing that they can teach or tell me that is going to change anything about my life. But I’ll do my time. It’ll make my family at home happy, the courts will be off my back and I will cut back or hide my continuous use of Xanax better so that no one would ever know that I didn’t leave rehab cured.

Let me tell you this… Anonymous, Anonymous and Anonymous let me hang myself. They had my number from day one and they watched, listened and began to see what I undoubtedly knew was burled deep inside of me. I was in control. So confident and cocky was I that I even began to challenge all of them, well all but Paul because I loved his group therapy, I didn’t feel like I was at same lecture that was being forced feed to me, that I wouldn’t have even ordered off the menu given the choice. Paul called it like it was, most of the time when he called me on my shit, under my breath I would mumble, fuck you and your damn meatballs that you left with after you nodded off in your fucking pasta at a family dinner. At least I would’ve taken a to go dish with extra meatballs, I would have planned ahead, because I know better than you. Tell me I’m not stepping up to the plate for my recovery, that I’m like a little rid of recess, just playing, that I was heading towards a relapse as soon as I left. FUCK YOU. I know ya’ll know what I am talking about if you’ve been in PHP for more than one week right. Go ahead laugh to yourself. Now let me tell you whose laughing at this and why. I hope Paul is laughing. I laugh at myself every time I think of that meatball story and the one about his girlfriends Mother telling him off. We all have done or thought no different. We just don’t admit it. I now understand the constant repetitiveness, day after the day it seemed like every group was the same thing, the exact same thing. We got it the first three times, right? NOPE! We are spoiled children, we want what we want when we want it, half the time we are tuning them out, easily distracted by anything or anyone. Just get me through the 50 minutes so I can go smoke. Now I’m glad and I understand having it drilled over and over again, we wouldn’t retain it any other way. The things that they are telling

us we really do need to know, there will be something that happens and you’ll stop and say what did they tell us about this? What did they teach and show us how to do? Let me remember, lets see if it really works. GUESS WHAT IT WORKS, thank GOD they didn’t get bored repeating the same thing over and over to us until we got it.

Then on day fourteen, In came Anonymous. I didn’t like, didn’t want her, hell no was she going to do my therapy, neither was Anonymous or Anonymous and they sure as hell wasn’t going to give me Paul because he was who I was hoping would stuck with me.

Let me tell you what. Anonymous looked at me and didn’t blink and eye. Asked me if I would give her a moment of my time, just so I could tell her why I was so adamant that she was not going to be my therapist. I thought, alright she’s trying to make nice, whatever. IN FIVE MINUTES I WAS FLOORED SHE HAD ME HOOK LINE AND SINKER!

Anonymous held no punches. She hits the ground running and you better have on good pair of running shoes. She going to make you go the distance, go beyond the distance and she ain’t coddle you, baby you or let you take the easy way because you think its too hard, hurts too much or you are scared to death. She’s going to open you up, strip you down, make you feel everything you have tried to kill, numb and run away from…

HEAR THIS… YOU ARE GOING TO FEEL IT, YOU ARE GOING TO GO THROUGH IT SO DEEPLY THAT YOU BE CONVINCED YOUR HEART IS GOING TO BREAK IN TWO BECAUSE OF THE DEPTH OF YOUR PAIN AT EVERYTHING THAT WASN’T . EVERYTHING THAT COULD HAVE BEEN and HOW IN THE HELL DID YOU LET YOUR LIFE BECOME WHAT IT IS THAT BROUGHT YOU HERE> WHAT DO YOU DO NOW and WHY IN THE FUCK IS TERESA DOING THIS TO YOU. SHE’S A BITCH AND CRUEL AND THE ABSOLUTE WORSE SHE’S MAKING YOU FEEL EVERYTHING IN YOU DOQN TO YOUR TOES IN FRONT OF A GROUP OF WOMEN THAT YOU JUST KNOW BE GOING TO THINK YOU’RE A PANSY, DOORMAT AND WEAK, THEY ARE GOING TO PITY YOU OR WORSE, THERE ISN’T ONETHING YOU CAN DO TO GET CONTROL OF WHAT SHE HAS BROUGHT YOU TO. SHE GIVES YOU NOWHERE TO RUN AND HIDE AND BELIEVE ME, I WANTED TO KILL HER AS I WAS RUNNING OUT THE DOOR. TERESA LOCKED IN ON JUST ME, IT WAS AS IF SHE WAS GUIDING MY SOUL THROUGH THIS MAZE OF EMOTION. SHE WASN’T GOING TO CARRY ME. I HAD TO WALK THROUGH IT ALL ON MY OWN BUT SHE WASN’T GOING TO LEAVE MY SIDE EITHER. SHE BECAME MY STRENGTH AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE THERE WAS SOMEONE THAT WAS NOT RETURNING ME. THAT NIGHT SHE TALKED TO ME ON THE PHONE, LISTENED TO ME, TOLD ME I WAS

BRAVE, I WAS STRONG AND I COULD DO THIS. I WOULD LIVE. I LOOK AT THAT NOW AS THAT DAY WAS THE ENDING OF MY FIRST LIFE AND TERESA HAD SOMEHOW REBIRTHED ME. A SPIRITUAL MOTHER IF YOU WILL. I WAS NEW, I WAS RAW AND I WAS VULERNABLE. THEN THE GOOD STUFF HAPPENED TO ME. THE MIRACLE THAT I AM NOW LIVING. TERESA GAVE ME THE KNOWLEDGE AND THE TOOLS TO SHOW UP TO MY LIFE. SHE BEAT DOWN THE DOOR AND I ANSWERED IT. THERE ISN’T ONE THING THAT SHE TOLD, TAUGHT OR MADE ME ACT OUT THROUGH ROLE PLAY THAT HASN’T BEEN TRUE IN MY LIFE OUTSIDE THE SECURE ENVIRONMENT OF PHP. SHE GAVE ME THE REALITY OF THE WORLD THAT I WAS RETURNING TO BUT SHE GAVE ME A NEW WAY TO APPROACH IT, SEE IT AND HAVE FAITH IN GOD AND THAT THIS IS THE LIFE THAT I WAS MEAN TO LIVE.

THERE ISN’T A DAY THAT Anonymous ISN’T IN MY THOUGHTS. THAT I DO NOT APPLY SOMETHING THAT SHE GAVE ME THE TOOLS FOR AND ALSO SHOWED ME HOW TO USE THEM AS WELL AS HOW THEY WORKED.

GOD IS THE ONE WHO SAVED ME, TERESA WAS THE ONE THAT INTRODUCED ME TO HIS WILL OVER ME AND MY LIFE.

TODAY I PICKED UP MY 90 DAY CHIP. THE FIRST DAY AT THE PHP, 90 DAYS SEEMED SO FAR IN THE FUTURE, A LIFETIME AWAY. I MADE IT AND IT WAS AN INCREDIBLE ACHEIVEMENT IN THIS 2ND CHANCE FOR A LIFE. TERESA MAY HAVE NOT BEEN PHYSICALLY PRESENT AS I WALKED UP THERE, BUT SHE WAS WITH ME SPIRITUALLY. I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SHOW HER THE GRATITUDE THAT I FEEL SHE DESERVES THE BEST THAT I CAN DO IS, TELL YOU WHAT SHE AND THIS PROGRAM HAVE GIVEN ME. THEY HAVE GIVEN ME MY FAMILY AGAIN, MY SELF-RESPECT, THEY HAVE GIVEN ME A LIFE THAT I CAN’T WAIT TO WAKE UP AND GREET EVERY SINGLE MORNING, I HAVE PEACE, I HAVE FAITH AND I LIKE THE WOMAN I NOW SEE IN THE MIRROR, THE WOMAN THAT TERESA INTRODUCED ME TO.

WHAT THEY ARE DOING, WHAT YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH, WHAT THEY SUGGEST WORKS, TRULY DOES WORK. I AM LINING PROOF.

IF EMDR WITH JIMMY IS SUGGESTED, DON’T HESITATE FOR A SECOND. I CAN’T EVEN BEGAN TO EXPLAIN WHAT THAT THERAPY HAS DONE FOR ME. I AM FREE OF THE CONSTANT FILM OF HURT AND PAIN THT I gING MOMENT ARE NOW GONE. I NO LONGER LIVE IN THE PAST. I DON’T FEAR THE FUTURE. I LIVE IN THE NOW AND MY NOW IS A WONDERFUL PLACE TO BE.

THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING
Anonymous